Outsourcing hits a little too close to home...

Aijaz Rahi / APHewlett-Packard employees work at the company's Business Process Outsourcing center in Bangalore, India, in 2007.

Syracuse, NY -- Man, I thought my profession was bulletproof when it comes to outsourcing. Then the following story started moving around the Internet today. Yeah. Thanks, Internet.I thought we were friends.

From Business Week:

OC Register to outsource some editing to India

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- An Indian company will take over copy editing duties for some stories published in The Orange County Register and will handle page layout for a community newspaper at the company that owns the Pulitzer Prize-winning daily, the newspaper confirmed Tuesday.

Orange County Register Communications Inc. will begin a one-month trial with Mindworks Global Media at the end of June, said John Fabris, a deputy editor at the Register.

Mindworks' Web site says the company is based outside New Delhi and provides "high-quality editorial and design services to global media firms ... using top-end journalistic and design talent in India."

Editors at Mindworks will work five shifts a week for one month, performing layout for the community paper and editing some stories in the flagship Register, Fabris said. Staffing at the company will not be affected, he said.

Fabris did not specify which community newspaper would be laid out by Indian designers.

"This is a small-scale test, which will not touch our local reporting or decision-making. Our own editors will oversee this work," Fabris said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "In a time of rapid change at newspapers, we are exploring many ways to work efficiently while maintaining quality and improving local coverage."

The company declined to release the financial terms of the deal.

Orange County Register Communications has struggled in recent months with circulation declines. The Register recently dropped from the third-largest newspaper in California to the fifth-largest, behind the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union-Tribune and Sacramento Bee.

That's just... incredible.

I mean, we've been dealing with it for years in the retail industry, no? Especially along the "customer support" lines. Like the time I called a Certain Computer Company's support line a few years back and the reponse I got (from India) was "Our computers are down now. Can you call back?"

And now... Newspapers? Yikes. That would be like me outsourcing the Store Front e-Newsletter (see below) and... Heyyyy. Wait a minute... I just had an idea...

On to...

You:

* nedrow42 comments, "Kmart checkout experience less than impressive? Wow, you could have knocked me over with a feather on that one. Perhaps they felt they needed to retain at least some aspects of the old Kmart? After all, it generally seemed that slow, incompetent, painful checkout was just as much a part of the KMart experience as the blue light specials.''

* KaiB comments, "I'm not impressed with these Kmart prototype stores. They seem to have one of these every two years or so. The problem is they don't have enough money to roll this out chain-wide, and thus it has very little effect."

Poor Kmart. So lost along the way...

Oh, and hey, KaiB, this one's for you:

* Tucson Dave writers, "Bob, greetings from the Desert Southwest. Recently, on a visit to Richmond, Va., we visited a newly-opened Chipotle. While we had an enjoyable experience, we were not overly impressed. KaiB is dead on with his assessment that Chipotle is in reality an upscale Taco Bell. Of course, since I've lived in Tucson almost five years, any chain Mexican establishment would be underwhelming in my eyes. Keep those columns coming."

Thanks...

And on your five-year sitch:

True, that. I can't begin to imagine the tasty choices available there. Someday, I will work my way through the hot sauces of Tucson. All I have to do is get there. I want to.